Fans searching for "Jessica Biel" or "Jessica Biel downloads," "Jessica Biel wallpaper," "Jessica Biel screen savers," "Jessica Biel photos," and "Jessica Biel videos" have a one in five chance of landing at a Web site that has tested positive for online threats such as spyware, adware, spam, phishing, viruses and other malware. McAfee's conclusion: Searching for the latest celebrity news and downloads can cause serious damage to personal computers.

"Consumers' obsession with celebrity news and culture is harmless in theory, but one bad download can cause a lot of damage to a computer."

Internet criminals might be rethinking a favorite scam for stealing people's personal information. A report being released Wednesday by IBM Corp. shows a big drop in the volume of "phishing" e-mails, in which fraud artists send what looks like a legitimate message from a bank or some other company. If the recipients click on a link in a phishing e-mail, they land on a rogue Web site that captures their passwords, account numbers or any other information they might enter.

To protect yourself against phishing, access sensitive sites on your own, rather than by following links in e-mails, which might lead to phishing sites.

The average gamer, far from being a teen, is actually a 35-year-old man who is overweight, aggressive, introverted — and often depressed, according to a report out this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study also shows that when children and teenagers become game players, a trend toward physical inactivity and corresponding health problems extends -- and is exacerbated -- into adulthood.

"Among researchers, there is growing concern and uncertainty about the health consequences of video game playing," the CDC reported.

The German government warned job-seekers Friday to avoid posting potentially compromising pictures or remarks on social networking sites such as Facebook, citing a study about their use by employers. Consumer affairs minister Ilse Aigner "calls on citizens who use the Internet often to think about what they put online," a spokeswoman for her ministry told a regular government news conference.

28 percent of the around 500 German companies polled searched for information about their would-be employees' hobbies, political opinions and personal lives.

Albert Gonzalez, the man described by federal authorities as the kingpin of a gang responsible for stealing more than 130 million payment cards, is a computer addict constantly looking for ways to challenge his abilities, according to his lawyer. He has had an unhealthy obsession with computers since the age of 8. "He was self-taught, He didn't go out in the sandbox or play baseball. The computer was his best friend."

"It wasn't healthy. It's a sickness. It's a problem that has not been addressed in our society."

Switzerland's data protection watchdog on Friday demanded that Google immediately withdraw the "Street View" facility it has started offering on its map of Switzerland. Federal data protection and transparency officer Hanspeter Thuer released a statement warning that the US-based Internet giant was not respecting conditions he set to respect personal privacy in Switzerland.

The online service, which began in the United States, has sparked controversy because the snapshots also inadvertently capture passers-by on camera, sometimes in embarrassing or private moments.

The first US retreat for Internet addicts has opened its doors, welcoming a teenager that was captive to World of Warcraft online role-playing videogame. The 19-year-old boy went from pursuing quests in Azeroth to bottle-feeding baby goats and building a chicken coop as part of a reStart Internet Addiction Recovery Program at a rural five acre spread in the state of Washington.

"It is about helping people addicted to technology get through the withdrawal and help their brains get wired back to normal and connected to the world in a positive way. Games are really designed to keep people hooked. Those that stay hooked are people really vulnerable for whom the world is painful or scary."

Facebook, for better or worse, is like being at a big party with all your friends, family, acquaintances and co-workers. There are lots of fun, interesting people you're happy to talk to when they stroll up.

Sure, Facebook can be a great tool for keeping up with folks who are important to you. But far more posts read like navel-gazing diary entries, or worse, spam. A recent study categorized 40 percent of Twitter tweets as "pointless babble," and it wouldn't be surprising if updates on Facebook, still a fast-growing social network, break down in a similar way. Here are 12 of the most annoying types of Facebook users:

A Canadian model has won a landmark case in a New York court after Google was forced to disclose the online identity of a blogger who anonymously posted derogatory comments about the Vogue covergirl. The ruling came after Liskula Cohen, 36, filed suit in a bid to unmask the identify of her tormentor, who posted suggestive photographs of Cohen on the blog and described her as a "ho" and a "psychotic, lying, whoring... skank."

Google said that while the company does not tolerate "cyber bullying" it is also respectful of privacy. "We sympathize with anyone who may be the victim of cyber bullying,"

The clock is ticking, people are dying and a flu virus is sweeping the globe -- that is the scenario of a new computer game designed to make people think about how to respond to the swine flu pandemic. In "The Great Flu", players must choose whether or not to stockpile anti-viral drugs and deploy research teams to new areas of outbreak as the number of infections and deaths rises and more countries are affected.

"The game is very realistic and has an educational value. It informs people how the virus spreads, what the flu is and on the ways to fight the pandemic."

A 14-year-old boy was in critical condition in hospital with kidney failure after repeated beatings at an Internet rehabilitation camp in southwest China, state media said Wednesday. The incident in Sichuan province took place just weeks after another teenage boy was beaten to death at a similar rehabilitation centre in the south of the country where his parents had sent him to cure his Internet addiction.

China has 10 million teenage web addicts, the China Daily said, citing data from the China Youth Internet Association. The association said last week that there are at least 400 private Internet rehabilitation clinics nationwide.

US prosecutors have charged a man with stealing data relating to 130 million credit and debit cards. Officials say it is the biggest case of identity theft in American history.

They say Albert Gonzalez, 28, and two un-named Russian co-conspirators hacked into the payment systems of retailers, including the 7-Eleven chain. Prosecutors say they aimed to sell the data on. If convicted, Mr Gonzalez faces up to 20 years in jail for wire fraud and five years for conspiracy.

The cyberattacks against Georgia a year ago were conducted in close connection with Russian criminal gangs, and the attackers likely were tipped off about Russia's intent to invade the country, according to a new technical analysis, much of which remains secret. The stunning conclusions come from the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, an independent nonprofit research institute that assesses the impact of cyber attacks.

Bombers struck targets throughout the country, and at the same time Georgian media and government sites fell under DDOS attack.

A new hacking incident report warns there has been a steep rise in attacks at social-networking hotspots including wildly popular microblogging service Twitter. Hackers aren't just hunting for victims in the flocks of people at social networks, they're also using Twitter to command "botnet" armies of infected computers, according to Internet security specialists.

"A lot of Web 2.0 widgets, mashups and the like that users go for make it easy for all these guys to launch attacks." Facebook became an Internet star after opening its platform to widgets, mini-applications made by outside developers, and now boasts more than 250 million members.

The Twitter micro-blogging service was knocked offline this morning for
several hours as a result of a denial of service attack (DDoS). Twitter
has confirmed and reported the attack in a post
on its official blog earlier today: "We are defending against this
[DDos] attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we
continue to defend and later investigate." The company later reported
that the service as been resumed but they are still continuing to
defend against and recover from this attack. No further updates have
been provided yet. Several sources are also reporting problems with
Facebook today.

The 24-year-old Singaporean research analyst is constantly on the lookout for attack manuals, video clips of Islamist militants in training and fiery extremist chatter that could hint at an imminent assault somewhere.

Nur Azlin is one of five research analysts at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies who monitor extremist websites daily to get a sense of an emerging battleground in the fight against terrorism. There are an estimated 5,500-6,000 websites worldwide peddling extremist ideas, according to the researchers.

A researcher looking into the attacks that knocked Twitter offline last week discovered another, unrelated security problem. At least one criminal was using a Twitter account to control a network of a couple hundred infected personal computers, mostly in Brazil.

Networks of infected PCs are referred to as "botnets" and are responsible for so much of the mayhem online, from identity theft to spamming to the types of attacks that crippled Twitter. A Twitter account that was used to send out what looked like garbled messages. But they were actually commands for computers in a botnet to visit malicious Web sites, where they download programs that steal banking passwords.

Foreign pornography producers are suing South Korean Internet users for breach of copyright by uploading their content onto local websites, police said Thursday. In an unusual case, a local law firm representing 50 US and Japanese porn producers has filed suit against about 10,000 heavy uploaders.

The lawsuit was filed simultaneously through 10 police stations in Seoul and the adjoining Gyeonggi province, a National Police Agency spokesman said, refusing to give details. "We selected about 10,000 user IDs that earned financial benefits from habitually uploading pornography on websites," an official of the unidentified law firm told local media.

Children are using the Internet to watch YouTube videos, connect with friends on social network sites and look up "sex" and "porn", according to a study of the top Web searches by youngsters. The words "sex" and "porn" also made it into the top 10, ranked numbers four and six respectively.

"It also helps identify "teachable moments" when parents should be talking with their kids about appropriate online behavior and other issues in their kids' online lives," California-based Symantec's Internet safety advocate Marian Merritt said in a statement.

The investigation into the attacks against high-profile Web sites in South Korea and the U.S. is a winding, twisty electronic goose chase that may not result in a definitive conclusion on the identity of the attackers.

Computer security experts disagree over the skill level of the DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks, which over the course of a few days in early July caused problems for some of the Web sites targeted, including South Korean banks, U.S. government agencies and media outlets. The DDOS attack was executed by a botnet, or a group of computers infected with malicious software controlled by a hacker. That malware was programmed to attack the Web sites by bombarding them with page requests that far exceed normal visitor traffic. As a result, some of the weaker sites buckled.

Fraudsters are taking advantage of the widely used but obscure Automated Clearing House (ACH) Network in order to pull off their attacks. This financial network is used by financial institutions to handle direct deposits, checks, bill payments and cash transfers between businesses and individuals.

The fraud typically starts with a targeted phishing e-mail, aimed at whomever is in charge of the company's checkbook. By tricking the victim into running software, opening a harmful attachment or visiting a malicious Web site, the criminals are able to install keylogging software and steal bank account passwords.

A growing number of South Korean companies are opening Twitter accounts to better connect with consumers and generate buzz for their products. However, industrial heavyweights such as Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor, SK Group and Lotte Group are not among them. Should they decide to join the 140-word Web phenomenon, they will have to acknowledge that they will be unable to use their own corporate brands.

A Twitter account created under Samsung's name has been currently suspended by the Internet company due to "strange activity," which could mean anything from service violations, technical abuse and spam distribution.

Worried that your relationship is going south? Maybe it's time to get off Facebook. A study released by the University of Guelph in Ontario shows that the Facebook social network increases jealousy in users' romantic relationships. The study, which was published in the latest issue of CyberPsychology and Behaviour, concluded that the more time people spend on Facebook, the more jealous they get.

"This may include details about their partner's friendships and social exchanges, especially interactions with previous romantic or sexual partners." The simple availability of information -- whether it's a girlfriend's posts, or photos and details about her friends and exes -- seems to increase a person's desire to search for even more information, say researchers.

The outage that knocked Twitter offline for hours was traced to an attack on a lone blogger in the former Soviet republic of Georgia - but the collateral damage that left millions around the world tweetless showed just how much havoc an isolated cyberdispute can cause.

"It told us how quickly many people really took Twitter into their hearts," Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, said Friday. Tens of millions of people have come to rely on social media to express their innermost thoughts and to keep up with world news and celebrity gossip. Twitter "is one of those little amusements that infiltrated the mass behavior in some significant ways, so that when it went away, a lot of people really noticed it and missed it."

A Latvian ISP linked to online criminal activity has been cut off from the Internet, following complaints from Internet security researchers. Real Host, based in Riga, Latvia was thought to control command-and-control servers for infected botnet PCs, and had been linked to phishing sites, Web sites that launched attack code at visitors and were also home to malicious "rogue" antivirus products.

"This is maybe one of the top European centers of crap," he said in an e-mail interview. Real Host was considered a "bullet proof" hosting provider, that would allow customers to remain online even after they had been linked to malicious activity.

A group of teenagers have reacted to warnings that using sites like Facebook, Bebo and Myspace can leave them traumatised. The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, says the sites encourage users to value the number rather than quality of friends they have.

He’s worried this makes people get too many temporary friends instead of real, genuine ones. He said: “It’s an all or nothing syndrome that you have to have in an attempt to shore up identity. "Friendship is not a commodity, friendship is something that is hard work and enduring when it’s right.”

The distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks that knocked out Twitter for hours and affected other sites like Facebook, Google's Blogger, and LiveJournal on Thursday continued all day Friday and may persist throughout the weekend. In its latest update, posted to a discussion forum of its third-party developers at 11 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time on Friday, Twitter reports it's still fighting the attacks.

"The DDoS attack is still ongoing, and the intensity has not decreased at all," wrote Chad Etzel, from Twitter's application development platform support team.

One of Israel's main political parties has shut down its website following an attack by Palestinian hackers, according to reports. Attackers on the official Kadima website posted images of wounded Palestinians and the aftermath of suicide bombings in Israel.

Slogans in both Hebrew and Arabic were also placed on the site, including threats to party leader Tzipi Livni. Kadima, a centrist political party that favours a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, is the largest party in the Israeli parliament.

Micro-blogging service Twitter and social networking site Facebook have been severely disrupted by hackers. Twitter was taken offline for more than two hours whilst Facebook's service was "degraded", according to the firms.

The popular sites were subject to so-called denial-of-service attacks on Thursday, the companies believe. Denial-of-service (DOS) attacks take various forms but often involve a company's servers being flooded with data in an effort to disable them.

A suspected pedophile surrendered to police after German law enforcement published clips from videos of child pornography allegedly showing the man. The German Federal Criminal Investigations Office also posted several photos and audio samples of the man's voice as they reached out to the public for clues leading to his arrest.

Police said they found about 42 videos in which the suspected pedophile abused children, believed to be between the ages of 5 and 7 at the time. The Investigator's Office said the man used violence against the children in some of the clips. The German Federal Criminal Investigations Office has been using technology to combat child pornography for several years.

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